Episode 709 - Joanna Newsom
Marc:Alright, let's do this.
Marc:How are you, what the fuckers?
Marc:What the fuck buddies?
Marc:Hi, this is Mark Maron.
Marc:This is my podcast, WTF.
Marc:How's it going?
Marc:Nice to be here.
Marc:Thank you for listening.
Marc:I appreciate you hanging out.
Marc:Here's something exciting.
Marc:A new batch of WTF cat mugs.
Marc:will be available tomorrow from Brian Jones up in Portland.
Marc:They go on sale at 12 noon Eastern, 9 a.m.
Marc:Pacific.
Marc:On Tuesday, May 24th, you can go to BrianRJones.com to get yours.
Marc:I also need him to send me some for the guests.
Marc:You know, these mugs, which I'm drinking out of one right now, started out as only...
Marc:For guests.
Marc:They were special.
Marc:Hand thrown.
Marc:Ceramic.
Marc:Beautiful mugs.
Marc:Just for the guests.
Marc:So there's a lot of guests.
Marc:They still get them.
Marc:But now you can get them.
Marc:And this isn't even a sales pitch.
Marc:It was just this weird thing that evolved.
Marc:So what's going on with me?
Marc:Pow.
Marc:Look out.
Marc:Just shit my pants.
Marc:Just coffee.coop.
Marc:Joanna Newsom's on the show today.
Marc:And she is an angelic genius.
Marc:Otherworldly.
Marc:It's rare that you meet otherworldly talent.
Marc:She's one of them.
Marc:I've only known a couple.
Marc:Remind me to talk a little bit more about that otherworldly business.
Marc:Obviously, she couldn't bring her harp.
Marc:That would have been quite an undertaking.
Marc:So if you want to check her out, you want to check her out before I talk to her, go right now.
Marc:Go to iTunes and look up Joanna Newsom.
Marc:Almost anything.
Marc:The new album, Diver, is pretty great.
Marc:But there's like five or six records here.
Marc:Took me a while to lock in with Joanna, but once I did, it was like now I'm...
Marc:The spell, I'm under the spell.
Marc:Joanna Newsom is a spellcaster with her magical music.
Marc:There's a documentary that I'm involved in.
Marc:I know I'm in it.
Marc:It's from our pals, Graham Elwood and Chris Mancini, who do that Film Nerds podcast.
Marc:But it's called Earbuds, and it's in the San Francisco Doc Fest.
Marc:And the screenings are June 4th and 7th.
Marc:You can go to sfindy.com and click on Box Office to get tickets for Earbuds.
Marc:It's about podcasting.
Marc:But I'll tell you, though, the feedback sometimes saves me out, you know, because sometimes I'm just not clear on what it is I do and how it affects people.
Marc:And, you know, and I choose not to process that.
Marc:I choose to just, you know, decide that I'm not good enough.
Marc:Then I get an email like this.
Marc:And these are just surprising to me because I have no, you know, I do what I do here and it has an effect.
Marc:The subject line is Ali Wong.
Marc:I'm listening to your interview with Ali Wong and I had to pull over on the side of the road to write to you.
Marc:Hearing an interview with a woman conducted by a man, no less, it sounded almost word for word like my experience with motherhood was mind blowing and emotional.
Marc:The birth of my three year old was near exact to what Ali described from the anesthesiologist to the torture and joys of breastfeeding.
Marc:It brought me to tears.
Marc:Hearing her describe the breastfeeding experience and hearing you listen to it brought back a joy I will never experience again.
Marc:I was unsuccessful doing it the second time around and there won't be a third.
Marc:So to hear her describe it was more enjoyable than you will ever know.
Marc:Thank you for allowing a woman to describe new motherhood in a way that women only do with each other.
Marc:Thank you.
Marc:for recognizing the transition in identity as something to embrace rather than be ashamed of.
Marc:This is an interview I will listen to over and over again.
Marc:Natalie in Dayton, Ohio.
Marc:You're welcome.
Marc:I'm glad that you had that experience.
Marc:It was a very new experience for me.
Marc:All of it.
Marc:And I didn't think of any of it other than like, well, she needs to do this now.
Marc:And I will bear witness and be present for it.
Marc:No prejudgment.
Marc:I was just sort of like, here we go.
Marc:Here we go.
Marc:So otherworldly talent.
Marc:Otherworldly genius.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Otherworldly genius.
Marc:It's rare to witness.
Marc:Sometimes you see it in comedy.
Marc:Like I am a guy stuck on the planet.
Marc:I am a guy stuck in my shit.
Marc:I'm a guy stuck in my life.
Marc:I'm a guy that needs to be grounded in whatever the hell it is to keep me in the world.
Marc:Because I'll go off in my head.
Marc:I'll spend a lot of time in my head.
Marc:And that's why I got to stay engaged with shit.
Marc:Stay engaged with the guitar, with the people, with the comedy.
Marc:Like so much of me getting on stage is about me saying like, all right, I'm here.
Marc:And this is where I'm at.
Marc:Okay, please bear witness.
Marc:Because if you don't, I'm mostly living in my head.
Marc:And the thing about people that can create beautiful things, you know, either through music or dance or film or whatever they're doing, comedy, it's just otherworldly things, things that are transportive.
Marc:People who can get out of their head and create, you know, almost another, an alternate landscape is something that I love.
Marc:And it's something that you rarely see done in a way that is completely
Marc:mystifying and beautiful.
Marc:In comedy, Maria Bamford, who's got a new show on Netflix, Lady Dynamite, that's getting phenomenal reviews and that she deserves it, is a good example of that in comedy.
Marc:This is a woman that struggles and wrestles and has real mental shit going on and then manifests it through creating characters and voices in another world.
Marc:It's otherworldly.
Marc:She's otherworldly.
Marc:She's a gift.
Marc:She's a gift.
Marc:To the arts.
Marc:Joanna Newsom.
Marc:There's another situation.
Marc:That where you just.
Marc:You go and I saw her concert.
Marc:And she's there with her giant harp.
Marc:And these other musicians.
Marc:And people are moving around.
Marc:It's all beautifully orchestrated.
Marc:And the sound is something.
Marc:Like I've never heard before.
Marc:And I'm transported.
Marc:I will be transported.
Marc:If I allow myself.
Marc:You can't fight the lift.
Marc:You can't fight the transcendence.
Marc:You can't fight the transportation if you want to feel the joy of otherworldly genius.
Marc:My girlfriend, Sarah Kane, makes these paintings.
Marc:Otherworldly.
Marc:Where does it come from?
Marc:I don't know.
Marc:I'd like to learn how to play harp or do characters or paint.
Marc:Maybe do some dancing.
Marc:That'd be fun.
Marc:Maybe I should take a modern dance class.
Marc:Maybe jazz.
Marc:Maybe I'll take a jazz class.
Marc:So I'm going to move you into my conversation with Joanna.
Marc:Her new album is called Divers.
Marc:It's on Drag City.
Marc:I think in this conversation I might have said nice things about the label Drag City.
Marc:That was before they ostracized me and made me feel uncool and not good enough.
Marc:Fueled the self-critical fire.
Marc:By their rejection of me.
Marc:But she's on that label and there's a lot of great people on that label.
Marc:So let's go now to my conversation with Joanna Newsom.
Marc:And please go listen to her music and give it some time.
Marc:Don't like there's so much going on.
Marc:There's so much there and it's intense.
Marc:I mean, part of you might go like, oh, I don't know if I can take it, but you can.
Marc:You can.
Marc:You're grownups.
Marc:All right.
Marc:This is me and Joanna Newsom.
Hi.
Marc:It's nice to see you, Joanna.
Guest:Thank you.
Marc:I am a little nervous.
Marc:Same.
Marc:You are?
Marc:So nervous.
Marc:What are you nervous about?
Guest:Talking into a microphone for a period of time.
Marc:Why am I nervous?
Guest:Why are you nervous, Mark?
Marc:Good.
Marc:That was good.
Marc:Good rally.
Marc:Well, because your work is pretty transcendent and amazing and requires attention.
Marc:I don't know if you know that.
Marc:The first time I listened to it, I think Dan over at Drag City sent me a box of stuff, of various stuff, so I get all of your records.
Marc:Even just holding your records, it's like, wow, there's a lot of records in here.
Marc:And there's artwork.
Marc:This is a whole presentation.
Guest:Yeah, I can see why you're nervous.
Marc:Right.
Marc:But my evolution with you has been interesting.
Marc:You want to hear more about me and you?
Guest:Tell me about the evolution.
Marc:Well, Andy brought you up when he was in here and I'm like, I don't know her.
Marc:And then people started emailing me like, how do you not know Joanna?
Marc:And then people were like, you have to know her.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I got a lot of pressure.
Guest:Nice.
Marc:Yeah, a lot of fans of yours.
Guest:A lot of burner email accounts of mine.
Marc:That's you.
Marc:Yeah, I'll get him.
Marc:He'll never recognize his name.
Marc:So my experience seeing you, having not seen you, and having you were friends with my girlfriend years ago in a scene that I knew nothing about.
Marc:I missed a lot of music.
Marc:And there it was this San Francisco thing that happened that you sort of were identified with.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So I knew a little of that.
Marc:And she gave me one of your CDs that I don't know if you want even on the face of the earth anymore.
Guest:I don't really.
Marc:I was very happy.
Marc:I thought like, oh, I got her.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:That is that is exactly like it's a piece of music or it's a recorded piece of music document that that makes me feel like someone got me.
Marc:Really?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Which one do I have?
Marc:I have one of the two that you self-released.
Guest:One was called Walnut Whales.
Guest:That's the one I have.
Marc:I have Walnut Whales.
Guest:I mean, I'm kind of kidding.
Guest:I'm fine with them.
Marc:But you didn't release them.
Guest:No, I didn't release them.
Marc:On purpose?
Guest:On purpose.
Guest:Yeah, they were... Because I don't usually notate music because I'm really bad at it.
Guest:What does that mean, notate?
Guest:Oh, like sheet music.
Guest:I don't write sheet music out.
Guest:And so my way of remembering songs was always to record myself.
Guest:And at that time in San Francisco, I was living with my...
Guest:then boyfriend Noah and he recorded some songs for me.
Guest:And then we sort of put them on a, burned them on a CDR and we're kind of like, I guess I sold them at one or two shows and then.
Marc:Noah Georgeson?
Guest:Noah Georgeson.
Marc:He was your boyfriend.
Guest:He was my boyfriend and now he's my friend and he's a great engineer, producer.
Marc:He's like on all your records.
Guest:I think.
Marc:The relationship continues.
Guest:The friendship continues.
Marc:That's what I mean.
Marc:Professional relationship and friendship.
Guest:Yes.
Marc:That's good.
Guest:Yes.
Marc:Loyalty.
Guest:Yes.
Marc:And you respect his talent.
Guest:Very much.
Marc:That's good.
Marc:That doesn't always happen.
Guest:No.
Guest:He also has an extremely great understanding of what I like musically.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Part of that, I think, is just intuitive.
Guest:Two people having a similar aesthetic, and part of it is time building up a knowledge of the other person.
Marc:Well, that's sort of what I kind of noticed, and I still want to start current and go back, but I don't know if we're going to pull it off.
Marc:Is that, like, as I listen to all the records, unfortunately, you have a relatively small bulk of work in a way.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Like, I talk to people that have 30 records out, and it's a real fucking problem.
Yeah.
Marc:So, like, I was able to really sort of take time with the records, including the whale and the one you don't like.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And through the first Drag City record and then, you know, and then into, what do you call the Van Dykes Park record?
Marc:Wise?
Marc:Is it Wise?
Marc:East.
Marc:East.
Marc:What is that?
Guest:It's the name of a mythical sunken isle in Brittany, France.
Marc:No, of course.
Marc:I mean, I should have known that.
Marc:It certainly grew, and what you were able to explore musically and poetically grows with every record.
Marc:Do you feel that?
Guest:yeah i think i mean i definitely sort of with every record got interested in looking in a different side or or um writing with a different set of goals yeah or parameters or obligations or rules or did you become more aware of that because the first record is really just you and the harp almost yes definitely and and
Guest:I think it's also a little more, I would describe it as a little more abstract in the sense that, like, or impressionistic or something, that there are lyrics in the first record that don't 100% mean a concrete thing for me.
Guest:They mean maybe a feeling or, you know, I'm describing maybe an image from a dream.
Guest:Right.
Guest:But...
Guest:I definitely think that that shifted over time for me where, you know, partially because when I made that first record, I wasn't really thinking in terms of very many people hearing it.
Guest:And then it's weird.
Guest:I don't know why.
Guest:But on the second album, I started thinking much, much, much more about the meaning of every single word.
Marc:So you sort of started functioning as a poet in a way.
Guest:I don't know.
Marc:You don't?
Guest:I mean, I don't know exactly how poetry is defined.
Guest:I don't write poetry that's not meant to be sung.
Marc:Right.
Marc:But do you start with writing?
Guest:Usually I start with melody and very skeletal chord progressions.
Guest:Really?
Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, like I think of it as if you remembered a song and then you forgot it by degrees, like the last thing you would remember about the song, that's usually the first thing I start with when I'm writing.
Guest:You know, this sort of like whatever the melody is that is stuck in your head and you kind of hear the chord changes.
Marc:So you're like summoning something that preexisted you?
Marc:Like I have a melody that I just barely have it, but I know it's all out there somewhere.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:That's how this last record felt.
Guest:That was the first time I had that feeling.
Marc:Well, that's pretty exciting.
Guest:Yeah, I don't know if it'll ever happen again.
Marc:It might be negative.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Good point.
Marc:It's sort of a fascinating... I'm sure you've discussed this in however many times you've talked about this, but to be...
Marc:That harp's a big thing, man.
Guest:Yeah, man.
Marc:I mean, like I'm looking at you up there and I'm like, holy shit, I've never seen anyone do that.
Marc:Like I've never seen a harp really, maybe once at a buffet or something when I was a kid.
Guest:That might have been me.
Marc:But like there can't be that many places that make the big harps.
Marc:No.
Marc:So like, you know, it's pretty much that's the way a harp looks.
Marc:There's no one redoing the harp.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:And it has a sort of ornate kind of like it's a completely impractical instrument and a completely singular instrument.
Marc:You just don't see them around much.
Marc:So what made you do that?
Guest:Well, I started with a really little one.
Marc:There's a little harps?
Guest:Yeah, a little folk harps, Celtic harps.
Marc:Okay.
Marc:Were you compelled by a certain music?
Marc:How old were you when you did that?
Guest:I was like four when I decided that that's what I wanted, and it was because I had seen my future teacher, Lisa Strazi Stein, performing somewhere, street fair or something in our little town.
Guest:I grew up in Nevada City.
Marc:You grew up in Nevada City?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:That is like...
Marc:That's like hippie style off the grid in a way.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:There's definitely a strong element of that.
Marc:I was up there.
Marc:I did a show up there.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:At the movie house.
Guest:Yeah, I heard you did that.
Marc:You did?
Marc:Who told you that?
Guest:Every single person I've ever known who lives, you know, it's a good deal.
Yeah.
Guest:Plus, it's a really small town.
Guest:I mean, there's a lot of folks there now that I don't know, which is an incredibly weird feeling.
Guest:The weed people?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:The weed people taking over.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:The legal weed people.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:I didn't know there was this sort of weird roaming community of weed growers until I went up there.
Guest:Yeah, it's weird.
Guest:And it's always been... I mean, I grew up with friends whose parents...
Guest:Made their living with, like, small cottage, you know, operations.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And, you know, fed their beautiful plants, like, homemade yogurt.
Guest:And everyone had their special recipe.
Guest:For weed?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And, you know.
Marc:Hold on.
Marc:Your family had friends that grew weed and fed it special yogurt that they made, probably.
Guest:Or they got down at the... Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Well, that's...
Guest:That is an accurate statement.
Marc:That is one of the greatest hippie memories I've ever heard in my life.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And coffee grounds.
Guest:I mean, you know.
Marc:Well, coffee grounds is, I know that one.
Marc:That's good for plants.
Marc:I've never heard yogurt.
Guest:This was one particular dude who's still at it, actually.
Guest:But anyway, there was a nice balance, you know, where, like, I think sort of the local law enforcement looked the other way and nobody's operation was very big.
Guest:Everybody was just kind of, you know, paying attention.
Marc:Growing their own stash and maybe making enough just to break even.
Guest:Yeah, I mean, there were definitely people who made their entire living selling pot that they had grown or, you know, providing it to people to sell it.
Guest:But it was like there was a coziness to it.
Guest:There was no.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:There wasn't this dark corona of weird vibes that sort of now this thing has exploded to the point where there's weird vibes.
Guest:I mean, I love that.
Guest:You felt them?
Guest:I feel them.
Guest:I love that town.
Guest:I love it forever.
Guest:I will always consider it my home, but there is a slight shift there now.
Marc:It's sad when even weed, such a friendly-seeming drug, once it goes big, drug people come.
Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, man, because it's not the weed that's the drug, it's the money.
Marc:Yeah, man.
Marc:It's all big agribusiness now.
Marc:But the subculture of growers, I think I talked to somebody, I don't know where I got this information, that they sort of move around sometimes, they move around the country, like they'll spend six months doing the harvest, and then they'll move on, that kind of stuff.
Guest:Yeah, and there's a lot of seasonal work, so trimming season happens.
Guest:That's it, yeah.
Marc:And you know what seasonal work brings?
Marc:Bad news.
Guest:Bad news.
Marc:People are, like, on the run from something.
Marc:Got to move on.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Sort of like carnies, you know what I mean?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But it's a problem.
Guest:Like, my mom works with the local food bank.
Guest:Oh, yeah?
Guest:And the local food bank kind of exists to service our local homeless community.
Guest:And during trimming season, it's just picked completely clean from just, like, doofuses who are in town cutting weed and don't want to, like...
Marc:Cutting buds.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Cutting weed.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:That's how I talk.
Guest:And don't want to like pay for food.
Marc:What do your folks do?
Marc:What kind of, what'd you grow up in?
Marc:What was the environment?
Guest:They're both retired doctors.
Guest:They both retired in the last few years.
Marc:What kind of doctors?
Guest:My mom was an internist and my dad is a hematologist oncologist.
Marc:So your mom had like a general practice up there?
Guest:Yeah, it more or less translated to general practice.
Marc:Like she was the doctor, like the town doctor?
Guest:Like everyone knew her?
Guest:I think everyone does know them, but it's a little bigger than that.
Guest:They have a pretty good hospital there, so there's a number.
Guest:She wasn't like the town doctor with her little leather bag.
Guest:The doctor bag?
Guest:My dad had one of those.
Marc:The house call bag?
Guest:Oh, that's great.
Guest:What kind of doctor was he?
Marc:Orthopedic.
Marc:But I think that they were given those back in the day when house calls were still a thing, maybe in medical school or something.
Marc:Here's your little bag.
Marc:Go make a house call or two.
Guest:I don't think my parents did house calls, at least when I was alive.
Marc:Uh-huh.
Marc:And your dad was a cancer doctor?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Cancer and blood disorders.
Guest:And they both retired?
Guest:Yeah, they both retired within like a year of each other recently.
Marc:How many siblings you got?
Marc:I think I saw two of them.
Guest:Yeah, I have a younger sister, older brother.
Marc:So that's it.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Those are the Newsome kids.
Guest:Those are the Newsome kids.
Guest:all musical apparently all musical yeah but uh my sister is mostly a scientist but she's very musical she's actually probably the most naturally musical of all of us now when i saw them really yeah come on when we were younger she was definitely like she's a cellist and she was definitely the shredder of the family uh-huh on the cello on the cello yeah just like could kick ass yeah yeah but so did they tour the whole tour with you
Guest:My brother did.
Guest:He played starting in October, and he also played on a few songs on the record.
Guest:Yeah, I saw that, yeah.
Guest:My sister is in grad school, so this was a fun little last stretch thing that she did.
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:Just the L.A.
Guest:show?
Guest:No, two weeks.
Guest:So she did the whole West Coast.
Marc:And then what, you just got another cello player?
Yeah.
Guest:No, Ryan Francesconi from my band.
Marc:That guy's a wizard, man.
Guest:Dude.
Marc:What the fuck?
Guest:What the fuck?
Guest:Yeah, he's incredible.
Guest:Where'd you find that guy?
Guest:I originally met Ryan at Lark in the Morning Music Camp in Mendocino, Redwoods.
Marc:When you were a kid?
Guest:No, I started going to that camp when I was a kid, but I met him as an adult.
Guest:He was one of the shredders in the sort of Bulgarian camp.
Guest:There's a Bulgarian, you know, it's just world folk music and he is a... Wait, world folk music?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Wait, what is this camp?
Yeah.
Guest:Well, it's called Lark Camp.
Guest:When I grew up, it was called Lark in the Morning Music Camp.
Marc:And that's where you went?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:When you were a kid?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:World folk music was the focus.
Guest:It was what I did every summer.
Guest:Starting at age what?
Guest:I think the first time I went, I was nine.
Marc:Oh, my God.
Marc:So you were exposed to all these mystical melodies from all regions of the world at nine?
Marc:Yeah.
Yeah.
Marc:That's pretty astounding.
Guest:Thank God for that place.
Guest:Mystical melodies galore.
Marc:Some of that stuff, some of the mountain music from certain areas is like, what's going on?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, actually, it's very important for me was that I met this teacher named Diana Stork there.
Guest:She's a Berkeley area teacher, and she taught me...
Guest:West African, she basically played on folk harp music that she had transcribed from the Korra, West African music that she had transcribed from the Korra, and then she taught it to me, and it broke my brain into two pieces as like a, I think I was like 12 or 13.
Marc:So a folk harp is the smaller harp?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Well, really, it's a lever harp.
Guest:So the main difference isn't just size.
Guest:It's the fact that with a pedal harp, a classical harp, you change the pitch of strings from natural to flat and natural to sharp by pedaling.
Guest:And with a folk harp, you do it with individual levers that shorten slightly each string.
Marc:So West African, what region are we talking?
Marc:Is that like Senegal?
Guest:Yeah, Senegal.
Marc:Oh, so that sort of weird ethereal kind of like twang thing?
Guest:Yeah, I mean, the thing that stood out for me then, and I think for Diana as well, and that she taught me was the idea of playing in multiple meters at once.
Guest:So I had sort of learned polyrhythm, you know, which is like...
Guest:But the polymeter is basically, like she taught me this figure, this West African figure, where the left hand plays in 4-4, and the right hand plays in 3-4.
Guest:And they come together every 12 beats.
Guest:And if you play it syncopated, they come together every 24 beats.
Marc:So you've got to wait a little longer for that one.
Guest:Yeah, but you also have to think.
Guest:I mean, your right hand is... Thinking is the wrong word.
Guest:When I was trying to figure it out, I was overthinking and I couldn't do it.
Guest:But you have to actually break your brain into two parts so that one part of your brain is sitting inside of the 3-4 meter and the other one is sitting inside of the 4-4 meter.
Guest:And you just have to... You can't think about it.
Guest:It's the patting your stomach and rubbing your head thing.
Guest:So she taught me that...
Marc:And you were young.
Guest:I was young.
Guest:And it completely shifted the way that I wrote music from that point on.
Marc:Wow.
Marc:Tell me about that moment where you finally got it.
Marc:Was it like learning to juggle?
Guest:They're all up!
Guest:Yeah, it was.
Guest:It's weird.
Guest:It's a little trans-like, actually.
Guest:The figure, it just goes around and around and around and around.
Guest:And when it finally clicks over, it's like...
Guest:It's, I don't know.
Guest:You stop thinking about it.
Marc:So that woman breaks your brain open.
Guest:She broke my brain open.
Marc:And then you meet this Ryan cat later.
Guest:Yeah, that was like 10 years later.
Marc:So let's go through it because it seems to me, and I'm just projecting that, collaboration has really sort of evolved you as a musician and you seem to like it.
Guest:I do like it.
Marc:It didn't seem to happen for a while.
Guest:Well, it depends what we're talking about when we say collaboration.
Guest:I'll be more specific.
Guest:Yeah, I put Diana in the teacher category.
Guest:No, no, no, I know.
Marc:So you're taking all this in.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Because a lot of times you listen to music and there's so many points of musical reference that I don't imagine that you necessarily contain all of them.
Marc:I imagine that this guy Ryan brings a lot with his little world of instruments over there.
Guest:He does, and also an important thing about Ryan is that even though he's incredibly masterful in the realm of Bulgarian music, that's not even his quote-unquote main thing.
Guest:He went to school to be a composer, and he is also a classical guitarist.
Marc:He's playing instruments I never heard of.
Guest:I know.
Guest:He's insane.
Guest:And the whole band learned a couple different instruments just for this tour so we could keep it really tight.
Guest:Everybody was running around.
Marc:I like that element.
Marc:There was stagecraft to it.
Marc:Just sort of like, oh, that guy's on the other thing.
Guest:Wow, look what happened.
Guest:Yeah, and it's also really fun to see Ryan play an instrument that he's not the best in the world at.
Marc:Oh, nice.
Marc:But he's got feel.
Guest:He's got feel, yeah.
Marc:Yeah, he was on guitar and he played some banjo, right?
Marc:And he played some other thing that has a weird name and another thing that has a weird name.
Guest:Yeah, Tambora, Caval, Mbira.
Marc:All of those.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Weird instruments from all over.
Marc:What is the signature of Bulgarian music?
Marc:What differentiates it?
Guest:Well, I'm definitely not the one to ask.
Guest:I know there's a lot of... The meter is really interesting.
Guest:There's a lot of 9, 8 stuff.
Guest:And there's a particular scale.
Guest:There's kind of modalities that are typical for Bulgarian music.
Guest:And the instrumentation, obviously.
Guest:So he plays the tambora, which is very common...
Guest:almost mandolin-like instrument.
Guest:Yeah, that was nice.
Guest:Completely its own color and timbre that isn't really like anything else.
Guest:Caval is another instrument, Bulgarian.
Guest:It's like a flute, but it sounds like its own thing.
Marc:What other type of training do you do other than the world folk music camp?
Guest:Well, at that point, I was still working with Lisa Stein, my first harp teacher.
Guest:So she taught me classical and some Celtic music, although I was pretty resistant at that age.
Guest:I like it now, but when I was younger, for some reason, I think just because it was such a typical thing for folk harp to play, and I was really interested in... Breaking it open?
Guest:Breaking it, yeah.
Marc:From age 10, you're like, I got to take this somewhere.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:It was really cool.
Guest:Yeah, I was like, you know, rebel harpist.
Guest:Well, you are, kind of.
Guest:Well, you know.
Guest:No, I don't know.
Marc:Well, I play the... How's the harp community feel about you, Joanna?
Guest:Well, it's interesting.
Guest:I definitely get wonderful support and love from a lot of harpists.
Yeah.
Guest:and then like there are some people like you know i told you about how we hire a person to tune my heart before the set because i'm doing other stuff and in most towns like when the promoter will call someone to try to hire someone maybe not most but let's say say like half the time someone will be like uh harpists tune their own harps actually you know like really pissed off about it which is true like harp is doing their own harps i tune my own harp you know i'll do it during the set but right
Guest:Like, we've got the timings on the day of are really... So there's a judgment there?
Guest:There's a heavy judgment there.
Marc:Are they like, I'm not going to do that.
Marc:Let Joanna tune her own harp.
Guest:Yeah, that's kind of... That's definitely it.
Guest:They say, we'll pay you.
Guest:We'll pay you for the work.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:She needs to learn.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But that said, I've met amazing, wonderful tuners who will come.
Guest:I mean, harpists who tune the harp who will say hi and say they dig my shit.
Marc:Okay, so when do you start?
Marc:So you weren't at a sight read, obviously.
Guest:Barely.
Guest:Really?
Guest:I'm to this day a terrible, like I basically coasted, like when I, how old was I?
Guest:Maybe like 12 or 13 when I started playing the pedal harp and I started studying with my classical teacher, Petsy Pruitt.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:She, you know, insisted that I start not learning everything by ear.
Guest:And then I, you know, played in a few youth orchestras and began this elaborate ruse of trying to convince everybody that I was reading music when it was still all by ear.
Marc:Right.
Marc:But you were keeping up?
Guest:I was mostly keeping up, yeah, depending on how... I did better when things were a little less dissonant.
Guest:When the hard part is just completely dissonant, weird stuff that doesn't stick in your ear as much, it really would have helped for me to be a better, a stronger reader.
Guest:And I didn't really read properly until I had to take music theory classes in college.
Guest:And even then...
Guest:I read well enough to like, you know, when you're like working on diatonic harmony and counterpoint or whatever, when you're like looking at musical scores, you're not doing them, or I at least wasn't looking at them in real time.
Guest:It wasn't like I was playing a piece to speed with two hands.
Guest:I could not sit down, put a piece of harp sheet music in front of me, two hands and just play to speed.
Guest:I couldn't even play at half speed.
Guest:It would be very embarrassing to try to do that at this stage of my life.
Guest:And I sort of really badly want to learn, you know, like to buy some software or whatever adults do.
Marc:I know.
Marc:Just go on YouTube.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I'd like that.
Guest:It would be so useful to...
Marc:well you could yeah sure i i'm trying i want to get better at guitar and i just like i've been stuck in the same place for years and it's okay but i'm bored so i went on youtube the other day just to like finger picking i want to learn how to finger pick a little bit there's a guy right there here's how you play the boxer by paul simon and in like you know and i and i just did it a little bit i didn't stick with it but i'm like this is helpful but it's out there so i'm just telling you
Marc:Shit.
Marc:I brought you up today in a meeting.
Guest:Oh, you did?
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:With whom regarding what?
Marc:For some reason, I went to a general meeting at Disney Animation.
Guest:Oh, very cool.
Marc:And they're talking about, like, they're doing these big musical projects.
Marc:And then, like, towards the end of the meeting, the guy goes, do you sing?
Marc:And I go, yeah, I like to sing.
Marc:I wouldn't call myself a singer, but I do it, but not professionally, but, like, I like it.
Marc:Why, for the musical?
Marc:He's like, yeah, there's, like, so many unwritten parts.
Marc:I'm like, you know who you got to get who would just be perfect for this.
Marc:For singing cartoons.
Marc:And then they're like, don't say cartoon.
Marc:I'm sorry.
Marc:In a musical animated feature is Joanna Newsome.
Marc:Check her out.
Guest:Oh, nice.
Marc:The guy wrote your name down.
Marc:So you might be a turtle or something.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You may have changed my life today.
Marc:Would you do that?
Guest:Yes, definitely.
Guest:I mean, particularly a turtle.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So when do you start...
Marc:So your parents are into it?
Marc:They're like, all right, she wants to be a harpist.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Well, the thing that started happening when I started studying with Lisa, I started writing.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And writing, I say, I wasn't writing it down.
Guest:I wasn't notating most things, but I was composing.
Guest:And I wasn't singing.
Guest:Music.
Guest:I was composing music.
Guest:I wasn't singing.
Guest:It was just all instrumental.
Marc:And who were your influences?
Marc:What were you pulling from?
Guest:At that stage, certainly.
Guest:What are we talking?
Guest:What age?
Guest:Well, I started writing...
Guest:You know, as soon as I started playing.
Guest:Lisa was such an incredible teacher.
Marc:She said you should write music.
Guest:Yeah, and improvise as well, which is, you know.
Marc:You love this lady.
Guest:I love this lady.
Marc:She's still around?
Guest:Yes, she is.
Marc:Does she come to your shows?
Guest:She does.
Marc:All right, so you're writing right out of the gate.
Guest:Yes, I was writing out of the gate.
Guest:Who were your influences early on?
Guest:I mean, I don't think I would have even known who my influences were at that stage.
Guest:I think when I got a little older, when I started studying classical music, I was very into French Impressionists.
Guest:I loved Debussy and Ravel.
Guest:And then when I got a little older than that, sort of like 16, 15, 16, I got more into like...
Guest:terry riley philip glass um philip glass compositionally i could i kind of can feel that a little bit yeah there's a momentum to it yeah and he does a lot of polyrhythmic and some polymetric stuff as well which is very interesting yeah yeah um and then kind of when i got into college was when i got more into
Marc:other more american earlier 20th century composers like ruth crawford sieger was a big one for me yeah i don't know anything about most of what you're saying but but i but but no but it gives me something to learn i know there's this whole world of american classical composers that sort of because most of us don't know a lot about classical music so we only know like 10 names yeah
Marc:and we probably couldn't identify uh a symphony that they did or anything that they composed but you know some of the bigger ones the same with jazz and me yeah but i know like you know there were these like copeland was a big american composer and there and i but i i sort of know a little bit of what he sounds like but i have no idea what what classical music was in america at that time what did she do
Guest:Well, she was part of a crew.
Guest:It was like Ruggles, I forget his first name, and Charles Ives.
Guest:And actually Seeger, Charles Seeger, her husband, was part of this group, I guess.
Guest:And Henry Cowell, he's actually my favorite.
Guest:He was an amazing piano Irish-American dude.
Guest:And they basically were trying to come up with
Guest:an american classical music that was not just derivative of european classical music and much as early american classical painting and visual art found its roots in landscape and like the ruggedness and the rawness right the idea of pioneerism so also did this musical movement find its roots and
Guest:trying to illustrate, like, craggy mountains and canyons.
Guest:And, like, obviously, especially Copeland had this go west sort of, like, you know, we... Here we go.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Well, what this reveals to me that I notice about your music is compositionally, it's certainly not pop music.
Marc:I mean, there are some songs that seem like, you know, kind of...
Marc:compositions that I understand.
Marc:You know what I mean?
Marc:But a lot of the music is composed in a classical way.
Guest:I just feel like the best I can do in describing my influences is listing a series of the things that I've liked over the course of time.
Guest:But I get really, I start losing track of it when I try to describe how, if at all, those influences have actually manifested.
Marc:But see, they have manifested, and it's not on you to explain it.
Marc:Because I can hear elements of something that I would identify with Copeland in terms of there are points in I don't know what record where you're like, this is sort of American sounding.
Marc:Like it's almost like like Randy Newman, some of like stuff on sale away where you're sort of like there is definitely a tone to American classical music that, you know, you can hear it immediately.
Marc:I don't know what you know what I'm saying.
Guest:I do.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:And certainly depending on where and when you use a banjo or when you know that there are there are points where you can hear that reverberating through the music.
Marc:And then there are some that are more exotic.
Marc:And that would make sense with some of the stuff you've been talking about.
Guest:Yeah, definitely.
Marc:You'll sign off on that?
Guest:I will.
Guest:I mean, I think the only thing I would add is just, it's not that I don't care about hooks.
Marc:No, you have hooks, and I like them.
Guest:I like them, too.
Guest:I mean, I like, there is music I would consider very poppy that I also think is quite genius.
Guest:Not mine, I'm saying.
Guest:You know, music I like to listen to that...
Guest:is very poppy, and it just entered my brain a lot later.
Guest:I didn't really listen to records as such until my late teens, and I didn't really until my 20s.
Marc:What were you doing to entertain yourself?
Marc:What was going on in the house?
Guest:I mean, I was my my friend Jamie, who was originally friends with my sister, Emily, has told me the story of how like she came over after school in high school to see my sister, Emily.
Guest:And I was working on I was playing I was writing something I was working on composing or whatever, playing harp in the family room.
Guest:How old?
Guest:I'm gonna say 15 or 16.
Guest:Maybe 17.
Guest:And they went out and saw a movie and did something else and came back and I was still playing.
Guest:And then they went on a walk down to Gochine, which is the street, like the end of our street, and then came back and I was still playing.
Guest:And then it was time to go to bed and I was still playing and I didn't stop until Emily came down and was like, you're keeping us awake.
Guest:There was a stretch.
Guest:I wasn't a great, I wasn't super committed until I was about 13 or something.
Guest:But then after that, kind of all I did was play music.
Marc:So you were like a full-on harp nerd.
Guest:I was a full-on harp nerd.
Marc:Because, like, I mean, that's intense focus.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:And it was consuming.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I did some other extracurriculars and stuff, but I didn't.
Guest:I was, like.
Marc:Like what?
Guest:Theater.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I was a little.
Guest:But, like, a weird, like, the nerdy version.
Guest:Like, I went to, like, Shakespeare camp and.
Guest:.
Guest:.
Marc:You went to world folk camp and Shakespeare camp.
Marc:It's all making sense to me now.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:And you liked acting.
Marc:I liked acting.
Marc:You were in a movie.
Marc:You were in Paul's movie.
Marc:I was.
Marc:So let's get further up.
Marc:So now you're a full on harp nerd and you're 15 and you're living and breathing harp and composing music.
Marc:And then after high school, where do you go with your music?
Guest:Oh, I went to Mills College, which is in Oakland.
Marc:And you studied music.
Guest:I did.
Guest:I started by studying composition and then I changed my major and for a little while was trying to do a self-designed major in ethnomusicology focusing on Senegalese music.
Guest:And then I changed my major again to creative writing and then I dropped out.
Marc:Okay, so how many years did you get through?
Guest:I got through one semester, then I dropped out and spent a year back in Nevada City, and then I went back to school for, I think, three years, and then dropped out because one of those little home recordings I had made had found its way to Dan Koretsky at Drag City, and he was like, let's make a record.
Marc:Really?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:How did it get there?
Guest:Via Will Oldham.
Marc:Will Oldham saw you how?
Guest:Will Oldham had played in Nevada City at Magic Theater.
Marc:Right.
Guest:And my friend, Adam Klein, had given him one of my home recordings and had written my email address on it.
Marc:Had you been playing out?
Marc:Had you been doing gigs?
Guest:Had you been... No, not at that point.
Guest:I didn't start playing, basically, playing shows until...
Guest:If I have the timeline right, I think it was after Dan had reached out to me about making a record.
Guest:And I think my then boyfriend, Noah, was really close friends with Devendra Banhart, who... Who dated my girlfriend.
Guest:Yes, who dated your girlfriend.
Guest:But also, so I knew him, just we were friends.
Marc:Devendra and Noah and everybody?
Guest:Yes, Devendra and Noah were very close.
Marc:And they were in San Francisco?
Guest:Yes.
Marc:And Noah was, you met Noah how?
Guest:he's from nevada city oh you grew up with him i didn't know him growing up but he was around uh-huh he was a little older than me and right i met him and we ended up at for one stretch of time i was an undergrad at mills and he was a grad student at mills and uh-huh he's a music guy he's a music guy yeah but engineering mostly
Guest:Well, at that point, I mean, he's a composer also.
Guest:He got a composition, a master's in composition, but he also is very strong on the engineering side.
Marc:Okay.
Marc:So between Will Oldham and Noah, your stuff got to Drag City.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:I mean.
Marc:Did Noah help you with those home recordings?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I mean, he set up a microphone and press play on his computer and left the room.
Guest:They weren't.
Guest:They weren't.
Guest:I mean, I think he would say as well that they were no.
Guest:No.
Marc:That's the one I have, the one that Sarah has that you gave to friends or whatever.
Guest:Yeah, there was no forethought given to Mike Angles.
Marc:Just like, here, get your stuff out.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Like a demo.
Guest:Well, no, honestly, at first it was, here, record this so you don't forget this song that you just wrote.
Guest:And then the next step basically was like, you're playing a couple shows, so here's a thing that you can sell at the shows.
Marc:It's interesting, the difference between you and Will is that he seems to put out everything that he does.
Yeah.
Marc:I feel like that guy puts out a record every couple of months.
Marc:I get a new Bonnie Prince Billy record.
Marc:It's like, what?
Marc:There's more?
Marc:What is this guy, just put one record out and then just start the next one?
Guest:I'm very envious of that, actually.
Marc:Are you?
Marc:But look, wait, but...
Marc:Not to discredit anybody, but I got to assume in listening to your music and into these records, I mean, a lot goes into it.
Marc:Orchestras have to be put together.
Marc:There's a lot of stuff.
Marc:You're not just playing guitar.
Marc:And it's like, who wants to drum on this?
Marc:Really?
Marc:Really?
Marc:Right?
Marc:I mean, okay, so now we're in it.
Marc:So you do the first Drag City record with Dan, who loves you.
Guest:I love him.
Marc:And you are, you know, you're, I think, a big act for them.
Marc:Yeah?
Marc:Yeah, sure, yes.
Marc:I can't, like, it must have just been mind-blowing to people who had never seen it before.
Marc:Just this, like, this woman comes out with this giant harp and sings in this amazing voice with these completely unique, because it's so gripping, Joanna.
Guest:you come on stage with a harp people are gonna be like what the fuck is happening and then like then the sound of a harp is like what what what yeah i mean that's true that's why i the first person i saw who played the harp you know i was a little kid and i was like what is that i need to do that that's i mean and that's any any harpist you see i think will
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Marc:Even if it's in a cheesy environment.
Marc:I don't know why it's been like I think it's been a long time since it's been associated with, you know, brunches and, you know, sort of passive playing, hasn't it?
Marc:I mean, I imagine that still exists.
Guest:I mean, that was how I, you know, paid my car insurance for the first like playing what brunches.
Marc:You did do the brunch circuit.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:The harp brunch circuit.
Guest:You know, Loomis and Sacramento, Rockland, a lot of these places have country clubs.
Guest:And I used to, in high school, and during that year off after I left Mills, when I was just like working at a coffee shop, I would go play Mother's Day brunches and Easter brunches.
Marc:What was your set list?
Guest:I mean, like standards, all instrumental, you know, a little classical, easy listening classical, some Pachelbel's Canon, some Beatles songs, some pop classics.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:That you learned by ear.
Guest:Well, yeah, although I would have charts, you know, like not charts exactly, but I would take the sheet music and I would write the chord, you know, like just write the letter G above it so that I wouldn't get lost.
Guest:And then I would just kind of just improvise on them, play them straight once and then play them like 18 times longer, spacing out and just playing weird little noodley stuff with my right hand.
Guest:And everyone would be like eating their Eggs Benedict and...
Marc:Brutal.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:It's a little brutal as a musician to be background...
Marc:Or you get lost in it.
Guest:No, I wouldn't say it was brutal.
Guest:And I wouldn't say that I got lost in it.
Guest:I would say it was better as a job goes than a lot of jobs.
Marc:Sure.
Marc:So you put out this first record and, you know, Drag City and Bonnie Prince Billy is a fan.
Marc:And you've got this unintentional alignment with this style of music that's going on in San Francisco at that moment.
Marc:But but somehow or another, you know, Van Dyke Park Parks.
Marc:How does how does that happen?
Guest:That was, you know, a couple years later, I was a big fan of Song Cycle, his record.
Guest:And I had this album I had written, and I knew I wanted it to be an orchestral record.
Guest:So I was looking for someone to work with on that.
Marc:So you reached out to him?
Guest:I did.
Guest:I wrote him a letter.
Guest:And he...
Guest:Met with me in Los Angeles at a hotel.
Guest:It was the Roosevelt Hotel before the Roosevelt Hotel got... Redone?
Guest:Redone.
Guest:It was kind of trashy.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I could afford it.
Guest:I was staying at the Roosevelt with my harp.
Guest:And Van Dyke and his lovely wife came and met me in my room and sat on the little chairs in the Roosevelt.
Guest:And I sat, I think, on the edge of a bed and played the record for him.
Marc:With the big harp?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I drove my big harp to...
Marc:So you have to have a truck your whole life, right?
Guest:No, usually vans.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:Vans all my life.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You can fit into certain wagons.
Guest:Like I drive sort of just a wagon now.
Guest:Uh-huh.
Marc:So you sat there and played for Van Dyke and his wife.
Guest:I played him the record that ended up being East.
Guest:I just played the songs sort of in the order that I knew they would be.
Guest:Uh-huh.
Guest:And they just sat there and listened.
Guest:And...
Guest:And then Van Dyke said a few really sweet things to me and I wasn't exactly sure.
Marc:If it was a deal or not?
Guest:Yeah, because he was so straightforward and nice about it.
Marc:Like what?
Marc:What did he say?
Guest:like just sort of like, yeah, I think this is going to be a lot of fun, you know, that kind of thing.
Guest:Oh, right, right.
Guest:And he made me a very nice compliment that I'm not going to repeat on the air because it just sounds like I'll be tooting my own horn.
Guest:But it was like very nice and I held it very close for years after that, you know, and it was just like, you know, it was a really nice experience.
Guest:And then we started just sending things back and forth.
Marc:Music, like sound files?
Guest:Yes.
Guest:He...
Guest:you know, would sketch ideas out, like on a really quaint, like old program that he had.
Guest:I don't even know what the name for it was, but, you know, where the little horn sounds would be like, and like the violin sounded like, you know.
Guest:But it was enough for me to understand the shapes and the harmonic things that were happening and the density and the, you know, rhythmic stuff.
Guest:I did the same thing with him that I've done with everything since, every record since with collaborators, which is just basically that I wrote like a long kind of essay about what I wanted each song to be in terms of what I wanted the arrangement to convey emotionally, what references or touchstones I wanted it to include, if any, in terms of actual sort of, you know, like I want this to be a Copland-esque moment or like.
Marc:You're that on top of all that.
Guest:usually there are certain songs where i don't have as good of an idea and then there's more back and forth right and then there's i will also do i'll print out the lyrics and i'll write above individual lyrics what i want to be happening here you know like this is i want this to be like a brass contrapuntal moment with four like lower voice brass instruments where i want this to be
Guest:you know, a bunch of violins playing in unison so that they create an unviolin-esque, almost synthetic sounding flat, you know, no vibrato or like these sorts of things and just notes or something less specific.
Guest:Like I want it to get really big here.
Guest:I want everything to drop out here.
Guest:I, you know, I don't want any brass here.
Guest:I want it just woodwinds, that kind of thing.
Marc:So you hear it all in your head?
Yeah.
Guest:Not necessarily.
Guest:I mean, for me, that's still pretty nonspecific.
Guest:Those are sort of textural or, yeah.
Guest:Sometimes I hear it in my head.
Guest:There were a few collaborations on this last record where I actually sent like a sound file of me humming an actual part I wanted to be played or playing it on like a synth, you know, like this is a flute, you know, counter voice I want here or whatever.
Guest:But usually I don't hear it.
Marc:So this is in lieu of writing music.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:This is how you do it.
Guest:Yes, although that said, I think that if I was a whiz at notation and I could orchestrate and write music perfectly, I still don't think I could have...
Guest:I mean, that record East would have sounded different, you know, like these songs on this record would have sounded different.
Guest:I think in the best case scenario, a good collaboration creates something that's better than, you know, than like I'm writing in a vacuum up until that point.
Guest:And then I open it, open the like aperture up or whatever, a little bit like let in this sort of new element.
Guest:And the conversation happens around the song and then,
Guest:I think there's always an order of operations for me when I'm making a record where I start in a total vacuum.
Guest:I don't want anybody's opinion about anything.
Guest:And then slowly, slowly, slowly, as I go along, by the very end when I'm mixing, I'll play mixes for people and be like, does this sound too buried to you or too tinny or too whatever?
Marc:So you're equally as...
Guest:engaged and nerdy about the entire production process from you know the second it comes to you compositionally to all the way through yes more now than I used to be like when I made that first record when I made Milk Eyed Mender Noah recorded it and mixed it and I think I was only in the room to like pick performances where I was like I'm out of what was simpler in terms of you know what was involved
Guest:It was simpler in terms of what was involved, but if I were to make a solo harp and vocal record today, I guarantee you I would be sitting there with eight zillion comments.
Marc:But are you nuts or are you just a more mature artist about it?
Guest:I am a little nuts about certain things, but I also just think like I didn't have an opinion when I was 21 and recording because I had listened to like six records ever.
Marc:You know what I mean?
Marc:How do you end up being so insulated?
Marc:I mean, did you watch TV and go to movies?
Guest:We didn't have TV.
Guest:I went to movies sometimes.
Guest:But we, there was music being played around the house constantly.
Guest:I mean, everybody, both like performative and like records were played, but like, I loved it.
Guest:My brother would have albums and I would listen to them and just whatever was mainstream pop.
Guest:I would be singing along to Sublime or whatever.
Guest:But I didn't purchase an album that I would put on when I was home alone of my own volition until I bought Fleetwood Mac Rumors.
Guest:When I was 16 and listened to that basically like, you know, hermetically until college.
Guest:That was my.
Guest:So that album has to have influenced me like way more than anything.
Guest:But I don't I couldn't point to where or how exactly that could be traced in any of my songs.
Guest:But I didn't even get Tusk until I was like 21 or 22.
Yeah.
Marc:How does Albini get involved with two records?
Marc:I've talked to Steve, you know.
Guest:You have?
Marc:Yes.
Guest:I love him so much.
Marc:How'd you get hooked up with Steve Albini?
Marc:Because people associate him with a lot of music, but the truth is he records a lot of different types of music.
Marc:But it seems like, did he actually come out here to record you?
Marc:He did.
Marc:That's a rare thing.
Guest:He's done it several times.
Marc:He must love you.
Marc:We love each other.
Marc:Oh, how'd you meet that guy?
Guest:I met him, well, I didn't even, I reached out to him before I ever knew him, because when I was working on Ys,
Guest:I've sort of like always been really obsessed with the idea of balancing elements out, especially in collaboration.
Guest:So I was working with Van Dyke on these kind of like sumptuous, lush, cinematic, very romantic and slightly Copeland-esque arrangements, orchestral arrangements.
Yeah.
Guest:And it was really important to me that at the core of this record would then be a recording that basically sounded like you were sitting in the room with me.
Guest:Like I didn't want to lose intimacy and the immediacy of the harp and vocal performance.
Guest:And I feel like Steve is the person who...
Guest:Basically, it's almost he delivers basically reality, but he delivers the like beautiful version of reality.
Guest:Like if it's if it's a documentary, he'll deliver the version where like the lens is really beautiful and like you're lit really well, but it's still a documentary.
Guest:You know, like he he it's he records.
Guest:Like how the room sounds, but somehow the best version of how the room sounds.
Guest:He angles everything exactly correctly.
Guest:He makes sure the instrument is angled correctly so that the resonance, it just sounds warm and real and beautiful.
Marc:He's just got a feel, huh?
Guest:He's just got a feel.
Guest:So I wanted him to record it, but then I wanted Jim O'Rourke to mix it because then I wanted this third element.
Guest:Because I feel like the way that Jim O'Rourke mixes records would be a strong reference to basically the Van Dyke Park's early stuff and Randy Newman's early stuff and this kind of very early 70s way of treating an orchestra that doesn't happen very much now.
Guest:Kind of the...
Guest:opposite of lush cinematic orchestral treatment, one in which the individual textures and voices and character of each instrument exists and sort of rises up in these little vignettes.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:Like, very stylized, hyper-stylized, and I feel like that's how Jim mixes.
Guest:And so I really wanted each of those roles to be fulfilled by each of those people, and I didn't really want any crossover, which is sort of what I did on this last record, too.
Guest:You know, the various...
Guest:Because it was a five-year process to make this last record, and I wanted it to be the case that the only common element from step to step would be me, so that I could kind of oversee it and sort it, and there wouldn't be too much emotional investment or ego on the part of anybody else involved, where I could just kind of take what worked and maybe chuck off what didn't work.
Marc:So by working with these different people who are helping arrange and people who are helping...
Guest:um sort of mold the sound you saw them as just you know just you know almost separate pieces that all sort of came under you and you could use them however you wanted sure although it wasn't even that i mean as long as in the moment in which that person and i were in a room together we're on equal footing they're not under me it's just that that that the finished product from that phase of the collaboration is then something that i can work with on my own and
Marc:Right.
Marc:So once you've sort of executed your collaboration and vision for the vocals and the harp and then for the orchestra with Van Dyke and then with Jim, you're going to do the mix.
Marc:Your relationship with each one is balanced in collaboration and then you can sort of like, thank you, now we're going to put it all together.
Guest:Yes, that's true.
Guest:Although the one thing I will say is
Guest:Even the mix on Ease, on that record, which Jim did, I still hadn't got to the point where I am now in terms of mixing, where I need to be in the room overseeing and almost directing every move.
Guest:At that stage, I still allowed myself to be dismissed from the room for five hours, six hours straight, where I was just lying on a couch outside while Jim...
Marc:Were you dismissed or did Jim go, all right, I got it.
Guest:No, it was kind of like, get out of here.
Guest:But the way that he works, which I respect, is that he basically wants an opportunity to give his take, his complete take.
Guest:Like, this is how I would mix it.
Guest:And then I can give notes.
Marc:I've only listened to, I didn't really know who he is, but I got one of his solo albums.
Marc:Maybe from, is he a Drag City guy?
Guest:He is, yeah.
Marc:So that probably came through there.
Marc:And I remember playing it and thinking like, this guy's a real guy.
Marc:Primarily because of the production.
Guest:Yeah, he's an incredible producer.
Marc:It's almost Beatles-like, right?
Guest:Yeah, sometimes.
Guest:I mean, the range of what he does and can do is pretty astonishing.
Guest:He is also a very classically trained dude, but he...
Guest:You know, like for Ys in his mixing of that record, he did a final pass basically on the arrangement where he was like, and it was very reverent towards Van Dyke's compositions, but he just sort of decided like this particular section, now that the record exists as a complete thing, I just feel that this moment needs to go away.
Guest:You know, so he would like edit.
Guest:It was like a final phase edit of the arrangements, which is something that I now do
Guest:myself and did with divers but at that point wouldn't have felt the confidence to do and also you learn new things from these people i would imagine yeah i also i learned so much about mixing from from jim like the way that he just sort of carves things out and rides
Guest:the vocals you know the vocal volume is modulated so much throughout you know where it sits in the mix even spatially it sometimes moves over the course of a song depending on what's happening instrumentally wow I learned a lot from him and from Van Dyke what'd you learn
Guest:van dyke uh i mean i'm a huge admirer of his um he was incredibly collaborative with me on ease i think that's maybe not necessarily as much how he works normally like he he i think traditionally actually is more of a like this is my take on the song
Marc:Well, I think most people who are just regular mainstream-y people know him from working with Brian Wilson, right?
Guest:Yes.
Marc:On Smile.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And that seemed to be kind of a collaboration, a strained collaboration.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Ours wasn't particularly strained.
Marc:Well, he's older.
Yeah.
Guest:But I mean, but I think, you know, we've talked about doing stuff since then and ruled it out basically because the way that he now works is not the way that we worked then.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Like, it's no longer an option for me to send five passes of notes about what I need to be different.
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Marc:He doesn't want to deal with it.
Guest:I mean, I don't want to speak on his behalf.
Guest:I don't want to word it differently than how he would word it.
Guest:But he, you know...
Guest:he tells the best stories in the world and he's a gentleman and a delight.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Well, good.
Marc:So on like now on East was, did you, when, and I know I'm getting sort of specific, do you see all these records?
Marc:You obviously see them as whole records.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:And do you see them as having a story?
Marc:Do they have a story in your mind?
Guest:Only in the broadest definition.
Guest:Okay.
Marc:So each song is separate, but you are thinking in terms of the records.
Guest:Well, it depends which record we're talking about.
Marc:Juan Ys, it seems like, you know, even this construction of the cover and the way that it's laid out and even the painting, the riff on that kind of symbolic kind of Renaissance.
Marc:Whose style is that?
Marc:What's that based on?
Guest:Oh, what?
Guest:Frau Filippo Lippi?
Guest:Yeah, I think.
Marc:There's something that demands that you reckon with this as a whole piece and as something that is all one thing.
Guest:Yeah, that's true.
Guest:And definitely Ben Vierling, who painted that piece, he and I worked for a long time on figuring out sort of the allegorical stuff.
Guest:Every element in that painting is representative of something in the tradition of a lot of Renaissance painting, and it all connects back to the record.
Guest:Right.
Marc:So you were all part of that and it was very specific work.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And the way the text is and the sort of renaissance-y feel of all of it.
Marc:You're all on top of all of that.
Guest:Yes.
Marc:And then we get to, you know, have one on me where it's almost like this kind of like 1920s Theta Barra cover.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:And the images that you chose to put into the records were something very different, something, you know, modern, something, you know, sensual and something.
Marc:What was the intention?
Right.
Guest:Basically, with each record I've done so far, the narrator of the record has been some version of myself.
Guest:You know, it hasn't been a pure, unedited version of myself, but it's been sort of a...
Guest:You know, the story, the songs have elements of autobiography or, you know, speaking to my own experience, and they're united by some common character.
Guest:And that character is, you know, an exaggerated and or edited and or stylized version of.
Guest:and the way in which that character is portrayed in the packaging and the art is meant to basically illustrate, like, this is the narrator of the record.
Guest:And so in the case of Have One On Me, well, let's say with Ys, it was a much more, well...
Guest:I don't want to say too much about it because I sort of want to leave it open to interpretation.
Guest:But there's sort of a different, like, archetypical identity to the narrator on each record.
Guest:And Have One On Me, obviously, is more of, like, the maiden.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, archetypically speaking, and, like, it is much more physical, much more... The songs speak a lot more to very sort of physical life stuff, like drinking and eating and, like, you know, being a woman.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, like, more... There's obviously more, like, romantic stuff on that record and more just sort of, like...
Marc:And it's compositionally different.
Marc:I mean, there are songs that are beautifully produced and orchestrated, but the repetitions of chord patterns are a little more accessible on some of those.
Guest:They are.
Guest:Yeah, it's a much earthier record all around.
Guest:More grounded, more earthy, more grounded in body.
Marc:And also like hooks.
Guest:Yeah, it's true.
Guest:There's some of those.
Guest:There's some of those.
Guest:I think that the melody and chord structure that I start with generally happen around the same time as me having... I don't think I would have the desire to write the song in the first place if I wasn't thinking about this group of things.
Guest:I've got a cloud of...
Guest:Sort of ideas in my head that feel like they're probably connected and I want to I have a compulsion to like spread them out and make the connections clear to myself.
Guest:There's a general idea or collection of ideas that I have.
Guest:preoccupying me, you know, like the idea of, or questions about permanence or impermanence, monuments and lionization or erasure, culturally speaking, and what it means to be remembered, like what that actually means.
Guest:And then I think what happens is when I'm preoccupied with all that stuff, which is basically to say death, you know, like then,
Guest:then when i encounter things that are interesting to me that that might in some way connect to that then they just sort of take root more and i and i read more about them and sometimes i reject them like this doesn't really apply right and then other times i don't reject them and i feel like i want to know more and then that'll send me tangentially down some other direction and then usually like with a song like this one yeah
Guest:You reach a point where there's this electric thing that starts happening where you turn up information that's too perfectly connected.
Guest:It just circles back in a way that you just start seeing the song actually form itself.
Guest:And it's...
Guest:Things are doubled and tripled.
Guest:You see the same word, but it means three different things.
Guest:And they all have resonant truth in the story you're trying to tell within that song.
Guest:And then it just... There's a velocity.
Guest:It picks up and picks up and picks up.
Guest:And by the end, it's just sort of writing itself.
Guest:And then all you have to do is find the right words because they have to adhere to a particular rhyme pattern or whatnot.
Guest:But that's just...
Marc:Do you do things for fun?
Guest:One of my really good friends who lives in L.A., Anna, she and I go on walks and go out to lunch and stuff, and she and I were walking recently last fall after my record came out, and she was like...
Guest:kind of mad at me not mad but she was like i just don't understand you haven't talked about this at all like the you know i was working on the record for like three years three years no i weren't well i worked on the record for five years but three years of that around i was i was hanging in la and walking with her and having lunch and stuff she's like you never once talked about it ever
Guest:You know, we would talk about like pillow fabric for our houses and like, you know, restaurants we wanted to try and whatever.
Guest:Like, I mean, we talk about whatever.
Guest:She's a great friend.
Guest:We talk about the gamut of things.
Guest:But the point is like I kind of compartmentalize.
Guest:Like there's when I'm working, then that's how I work.
Guest:And when I'm not working, then I don't really go to that place in my brain.
Guest:And I just.
Marc:You can do that.
Guest:I do that.
Guest:I have to do that.
Guest:I would be insufferable to myself if I didn't.
Marc:When did you learn the lesson?
Marc:Because I imagine that given that experience as a child where you locked in and might not have gotten out, was there a point where you had to learn how to get out?
Guest:I honestly think it was more like a social insecurity or social anxiety thing.
Guest:I think I knew pretty early on that the same part of myself that would compulsively sit and work on harp music for like six hours straight wasn't going to be a hit at Nevada Union High School.
Marc:So you had to sort of tend to that other part.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:I got to go talk to the people.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I wasn't good at it then and I'm not good at it now.
Guest:Like I still to this day have horrible social awkwardness and anxiety and like, you know, we'll walk away from conversations being like, why did I say that?
Guest:You know, like, but, but there, I think at some, there was just a split from an early age where I'm, I have like private self and then the way I interact with people and they don't really intersect very much.
Marc:We certainly, you know, like married a dude that, you know, it comes with a full history of social stuff.
Marc:I mean, you know, marrying into the SNL family, you know, that that must have been a crash course.
Marc:And, you know, well, those kind of people, I think, fortunately, knowing lots of them, you don't have to talk much.
Guest:No, that's very true.
Guest:That's very true.
Marc:You can just sort of hang out and get some laughs.
Guest:Yeah, that's true.
Marc:And listen to them talk.
Guest:Although, I don't know.
Guest:It's surprising to me how many comedians actually want to talk about things besides comedy.
Marc:Oh, yeah, no, they're all very, you know, they have a full range of, they're thoughtful people.
Guest:But you're also totally right.
Guest:I mean, there's many a dinner where I've just sat there, like, watching the SNL anecdote, like, ball pong from person to person across the table.
Marc:Well, he, like, I don't, you know, he's, Andy, like, my only knowledge of him is when I talk to him in here.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And he seems like a very sweet and sensitive, decent dude.
Guest:He is all of those things.
Guest:Many times over.
Marc:Well, that's good.
Guest:Yeah, he's the best.
Marc:Yeah, when I saw him sitting up there watching you, because as a comic and as somebody who does a certain thing, and you know my girlfriend, she's a painter, and you are a very special and specific artist that really...
Marc:knows what they're doing and this is what you do.
Marc:And it's completely different than what I do.
Marc:And I don't understand where her paintings come from.
Marc:So when I, I'm getting choked up for some reason, but when I saw him just sitting there watching you, like with this kind of like,
Marc:Like that, that there's a tremendous, you know, a real kind of beauty to a mutual respect between creative people, you know.
Guest:I think that's very true.
Marc:And it's so fortunate that you're from totally different disciplines, right?
Guest:Yeah, that's true.
Guest:Because then I can be, I'm very awestruck by what he does.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And it's a very special thing.
Marc:And they just don't cross.
Guest:They don't.
Marc:You know what I mean?
Marc:And like, I just, you know, it must be just, it's healthy in a way.
Guest:I think that's true.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And the last song, you know, time is as a symptom, you know, as a poetic idea and as a love song or an exploration of love, you know, you know, as you, you know, you can see you maturing and getting older on your records.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Right.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Can you?
Marc:Yeah.
Yeah.
Guest:I think, yeah, you can see me, like, I think that you can see my relationship with time and death shifting lyrically.
Marc:Uh-huh.
Marc:And do you find that, you know, sort of, you know, creating this poetry, and, like, you know, like, I somehow made a note here that, you know, that when you start to really engage the possibilities of music as you get older and more sophisticated with it,
Marc:If these things are something that you meditate on and are somewhat terrifying, mortality and love, do you find relief from fear through the music?
Guest:To some extent.
Guest:I think it feels good to be doing something.
Guest:I don't mean in the sense of distraction.
Guest:I mean taking an action.
Guest:And obviously this record in particular is asking unanswerable questions.
Guest:So it's not like it's complete once the questions have been answered.
Guest:They're not going to be answered.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I think there was like a sorting process that happened for me as I went through writing the songs where I was at least breaking down the questions and reordering them somehow in my mind in a way that made the unanswerability of them less unbearable in my life, that I could be more comfortable with the unanswerability of the questions.
Marc:In general?
Yeah.
Guest:In general, and maybe sort out one or two that felt answerable to me, like a sliver of a question or a half question or something.
Marc:But in the sense that as you move through these records and the creative process and then the final pressing, are they sort of documents of your coming to grips with these different parts of yourself?
Marc:I mean, like when you say unanswerable questions, are you more at peace after this record?
Guest:I think so.
Guest:But, you know, it's like...
Guest:you know, like in the most vague sort of simplistic sense, it's like, you can ask, you can have a song that asks like, what's the point of everything?
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:Okay, so why do you keep doing things?
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:But then if you zoom in small enough, like there's there at some level on some level of detail, there's some question that you can answer.
Guest:And so you just have to hold on to that one.
Marc:That's a great place to end.
Marc:I think that's true.
Marc:Do you experience, like, are you sad?
Guest:Do you have darkness?
Guest:I do have darkness.
Guest:I was a very sad child.
Guest:And I was somewhat depressed at times as a teenager.
Marc:For reasons or just because?
Guest:When I was a child, I was sad for reasons.
Guest:But, you know, comical, like, you know, like nuclear war and AIDS and starvation in Somalia.
Guest:And just like, you know, the wash of fear.
Guest:terrifying we're all gonna die my mom was a member of a group called I think Doctors Against Nuclear Disarmament or something and they used to meet in our living room and I was so little that I think that nobody thought that I was taking it in but I really was so I was terrified of nuclear war when I was a toddler and you know things like that and then I I took a chill pill
Guest:as it were, and stopped thinking about those things quite as much.
Marc:The chill pill being decision?
Guest:No, no, no.
Guest:I think I just sort of...
Guest:turn to when you're really when you're that little you haven't quite built up the defense to learn how to turn away from something that's frightening you know you just look straight at it like a little baby that doesn't know how to blink in the bright light or something like it's you're just looking at these glaring horrors and then i think we learn a little bit how to meter them out and um break them into doses that are considerable and don't just paralyze you with fear and sadness compartmentalize yeah a little bit yeah
Guest:So I did that as I got older.
Guest:And then, I don't know.
Guest:It's a really long-winded answer to your question, but I think I'm actually probably a very, like, very happy person.
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:I feel happy most of the time if I check in with myself.
Guest:I get stressed and freaked out in traffic and stuff, but other than that, I'm pretty happy.
Marc:Yeah, because I feel like your music and how absorbed you can get, like, just seeing you perform live, it's almost like, you know...
Marc:When you're in it, you know, and the other instruments are playing and you're at the center of this thing, you know, it's sort of completely engaged in your music.
Marc:As somebody who's watching it, it's something that is happening.
Marc:You know, we're watching a performance, right?
Marc:But but there's something happening on stage that is so unique and specific and and not quite.
Marc:We're connecting with the sound, but there's you're almost feeling like, God, they're like so into it.
Guest:That's true.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:And then when you come out and you're just sort of tuning, you're like, oh, she's human.
Marc:OK, good.
Marc:There's there are people that that person is not some alien being.
Guest:Right.
Marc:I mean, it's a good thing.
Guest:Yeah, I definitely think that like qualifying it in any way in terms of it being good or bad.
Guest:I can't say, but like you are watching me.
Guest:on a good night at least, in like a fully actualized state where there's no separation between like whatever the most essential part of myself is and the thing that I'm doing.
Guest:Like all the fake shit or the learned shit or the fear shit or the social shit.
Guest:It's just in the moment of playing shucks away.
Guest:And then as soon as I stop, it just gloms back onto me.
Marc:You feel that.
Marc:And that's exactly what you feel.
Marc:And that's an amazing thing you do.
Marc:You're a very special artist.
Guest:Thank you.
Marc:It was good talking to you.
Guest:So good talking to you.
Marc:Take it in.
Marc:Take it in.
Marc:Just having a conversation where there does not do her justice.
Marc:Go listen to Divers and the album before too.
Marc:Pick whatever record you want.
Marc:Tour dates, I'll be at the Tripany House Tuesdays.
Marc:I don't know how many of them are sold out, but judging by how I feel right now, there'll be something to watch.
Marc:I've got to put earplugs in now because my ears are going.
Guest:guitar solo
Marc:Boomer lives!